Bike to Work Day this Friday, May 18th

Posted on May 16, 2012 by KHolmes

Bike to Work 2012 Leave your car at home and instead grab your bike for Bike to Work Day this Friday, May 18^th. Join Mayor Greg Fischer, LMPD Chief Steve Conrad, Councilwoman Ward-Pugh, and others who will be commuting on two wheels this Friday.

Bicycling for Louisville is offering a tip for making sure you bike to work Friday: freeze your keys overnight on Thursday. Anyone who brings proof of frozen keys (a photo or frozen keys themselves) to the lunchtime Bike to Work Day event at Fourth Street live on Friday (see below) will receive a free poster from Hounddog Press.

Whether you’re a seasoned cyclist or a first-time rider, everyone can participate! There are four designated Meet & Ride locations in both Louisville and Southern Indiana. At each location, an experienced Ride Captain will be there to guide you on your commute. Then after work, meet up at Fourth Street Live! at 5:15 p.m. to join your Ride Captains for the commute back to the Meet & Ride locations.

Meet & Rides

(Plan to meet by 7am)

Seneca Park at the basketball court parking lot, just west of the tennis courts
Iroquois Park at the Amphitheater parking lot
Shawnee Park at the Southwestern and Broadway entrance and bus stops along Market Street to join the ride
Southern Indiana at the Park and TARC at Illinois Ave and 9^th St.

Please visit www.louisvilleky.gov/bikelouisville for more information, including Meet & Ride maps and Bike to Work Day registration. Registrants will be entered in for a chance to win a Trek 7000 bike with pack and rack.

Be sure to join Bike Louisville at noon for the lunchtime celebration at Fourth Street Live! Meet up with commuters, learn more about bicycle commuting, visit with vendors and just celebrate the bicycle. The winner of the bike will be selected during the celebration and additional prizes will be raffled off. Stop by for some free giveaways and meet with vendors who can help you learn how you can use the bicycle for transportation.

Bike to Work Day is sponsored by Bike Louisville and the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement as well as WFPL/WFPK Radio, LEO Weekly, Heine Brother Coffee, Vint and Whole Foods.

Lessons Learned Garden Tour: Rain Gardens

Posted on May 14, 2012 by KHolmes

The Jefferson County Master Gardeners are hosting the first “Lessons Learned” Tour of a master gardener’s garden on Saturday, May 19^th from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at 2817 Brownsboro Road. This will be the first in a series of 5 garden tours that will be given the 3rd Saturday of each month from May through September. The focus of the May Lessons Learned Tour is Rain Gardens.

An example of a rain garden that was just planted

This tour is located on a large corner lot in the 9^th District that had been plagued by water runoff problems until the home owners installed a rain garden. Instruction on installing and maintaining a rain garden, and the importance of plant selection will be discussed. In addition, you may tour this Master Gardener’s other ornamental and vegetable gardens where she uses water conservation and water management techniques. The beautiful patio beds were designed for easy access from the kitchen and to allow tending the beds with minimal bending and stooping. The cost of the tour is $5 per person.

Recycling Event this Saturday

Posted on May 10, 2012 by KHolmes

This Saturday, May 12th, the 9th District will host a FREE Spring shredding, e-recycling, and shoe donation event from 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. in the lower parking lot of the Mellwood Arts Center, located at 1860 Mellwood Avenue, across from Mom’s Music. This will be a DRIVE-THRU event.

Acceptable donation items are:

Shredding by Shred-It: Bring personal and confidential documents you no longer need to be shredded and then recycled. There is no limit on the amount of material residents may bring. Businesses will not be allowed to participate in this event. Items that can be brought for shredding include: documents, discs, hard drives, credit cards and other confidential materials.

E-Recycling by Eco-Cell: Acceptable items include handheld electronics—cell phones, cell phone accessories, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players, handheld game systems, GPS handheld units, laptops, e-readers and portable hard drives.

Shoe Donation by EDGE Outreach: Collected shoes have two purposes; keep used shoes out of landfills and raise money for water projects. Once collected, EDGE sells the shoes to an exporter generating money for training and water projects in developing countries. Any type of shoes can be donated regardless of their condition as long as the top part of the shoe is still attached to the sole. Pair the shoes together by tying the laces or with string or rubber bands.

Sustainability Tip – Go Beyond Curbside Recycling

Posted on May 9, 2012 by KHolmes

Go beyond curbside recycling. There are many items that cannot go in curbside recycling and should not go into the landfill. Other items can be reused instead of being thrown away. Find a list of local sites that accept these items. Some examples include plastic bags, packing materials, all types of metal, electronics, and paint. If you know of other places in the 9^th District to recycle or repurpose other items, contact Katie Holmes to add this information to the list.

One reuse tip included in the list:
Pottery Rowe, located at 2048 Frankfort Avenue, accepts used packing material, including peanuts, bubble wrap/foam, air pillows and medium to large boxes for reuse. If you have packing material that you are interested in reusing/recycling, please call 896-0877 to see if Pottery Rowe can accept it. This way packing material can be reused instead of taking up space in the landfill.

Please follow these guidelines for packing material:
Packing material should be in trash bags or boxes with no trash (i.e. paper cups, fast food wrappers, etc.). Empty boxes must be in reusable condition (not smashed, have all flaps in place, etc.) and broken down.

If your business has packing materials that you need to reuse, contact Pottery Rowe to see if they can accept it. If your business would like to receive packing materials to be reused, please contact Katie Holmes to be added to this list.

Greenleaves Neighborhood Composting Project

Posted on May 8, 2012 by KHolmes

In February 2012, Ruth Newman approached the Greenleaves Neighborhood Association with an innovative idea to offer a free community composting program for her neighbors. She offered to pick up kitchen scraps each week to compost, thereby keeping them out of the landfill and the sewer system (if you use a sink disposal). Instead, the composted kitchen waste is converted into rich, natural fertilizer that can be used to create healthy soil. Using natural materials rather than chemical fertilizers protects water quality, as unabsorbed chemical fertilizers can run off and pollute local streams.

“The secret,” says Ruth “is in the natural pine pellets which I buy either as kitty litter or horse bedding. When I make my weekly collection run, I empty my neighbors’ filled scrap containers and add a fresh lining of pine pellets to the emptied container. That keeps everything sweet smelling and dry for the next pick-up.”

Containers are labeled to show Acceptable (produce scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells) and Unacceptable (meat, bones, oil, fat, dairy) items for easy reference.Dumping her neighbor’s weekly kitchen waste into the collection bin.

After dumping out scraps, container stays clean and dry.Emptied container is re-lined with fresh pine pellets.

Each participating household made an initial investment of $10, which paid for a kitchen scrap container lined with pine pellets. Once the collected materials have decomposed to create natural fertilizer, Ruth will share this with neighbors who have taken part in the program. So far, five families are participating in the project, and Ruth hopes that this will inspire others to see how simple and easy composting their kitchen scraps can be.

After dumping collected kitchen scraps into her compost, Ruth has a clean waste container for next week’s run.

If you are interested in starting composting, you can find some tips here. View the 9th District Community map to see if any of your neighbors are composting – maybe one of them can help you get started. If you have composted material that you would like to share, or if you would like to start a similar neighborhood composting program, post on the Green Triangle Forum.

Sustainability Near and Far

Posted on May 7, 2012 by KHolmes

The Green Triangle is collecting green success stories for our website. We’d love to hear about any green project you’re working on, or sustainable steps you have taken. If there is a story you’d like to share, please contact us. Just Creations shared how they are working to create more sustainable communities, near and far:

Just Creations, located at 2722 Frankfort Avenue, is a not-for-profit store that sells fair trade goods from around the world. Fair trade is a system that provides sustainable employment for people who live below the poverty level in developing countries. Some components of fair trade include ensuring that people receive a fair wage, working conditions are healthy and safe, and producers use environmentally sustainable practices. Learn more about fair trade.

In addition to selling goods that are made using practices that support the health of people and the environment, Just Creations engages in green practices in its own store. They recycle or reuse everything possible. The store reuses paper, plastic, bubblewrap, and boxes to wrap purchases for customers, instead of purchasing new wrapping materials. Everything else that can be recycled is picked up by volunteers and taken to Metro recycling drop-off centers. Additionally, the store recently developed a partnership with Pottery Rowe, another local business at 2048 Frankfort Avenue, to reuse extra bubble wrap and other packaging materials for their pottery sales. (You can reuse your packing material at Pottery Rowe too – learn how.) Staff members at Just Creations take coffee grounds and kitchen scraps to the Billy Goat Hill Community Garden on Payne Street for composting. These are examples of great connections that can be made when community members work together to think of sustainable solutions to waste issues.

Just Creations can help you reuse items as well. The store accepts donations of tissue paper and shopping bags for use with customer purchases.

Frankfort Avenue Street Tree Master Plan Public Meeting

Posted on May 3, 2012 by KHolmes

flowering tree The Billy Goat Hill Garden Tree Canopy Committee invites the public to attend a meeting on May 10^th at 6:00 pm at the Clifton Center, 2117 Payne Street, to provide valuable feedback during the design process. The goal of the Street Tree Master Plan is to replant street trees along Frankfort Avenue in Clifton from Mellwood Ave. to Ewing Ave. The plan will focus solely on tree selection and placement. It will not address sidewalk replacement, street furniture or lighting. Charles Cash and Kristin Booker from Urban 1 LLC will present the preliminary design plans. For additional information you may contract: Lorene Hunter, BGHG Tree Canopy Committee Chair, lorene@iglou.com.

Order Large Recycling Carts

Posted on May 2, 2012 by KHolmes

Residential Recycling Cart: Black with Orange Lid

Increase your recycling capacity by joining the 250 households and over 100 businesses in the 9^th District that have ordered large recycling carts.

For a one-time fee of $50 or $55 per cart 9^th District residents and businesses in the Urban Services District can purchase large 95-gallon recycling carts that are picked up once a week.

Call 574-1109 or contact Katie Holmes to receive an order form. Learn more about the expanded recycling program.

Orange Business Recycling Cart

We hope that this program will soon expand to other districts, and the more participation we can show in our neighborhoods increases the chances of its expansion.

Recycle Handheld Electronics with Eco-Cell

Posted on April 30, 2012 by KHolmes

The Green Triangle is partnering with Eco-Cell, a local business in the 9th District, to recycle handheld electronics to benefit the Green Triangle. For each item donated, materials will be kept out of the landfill and the Green Triangle will receive funds to make our community more sustainable.

You can drop off electronics for recycling at the following locations:

Crescent Hill Trading Company, 2720 Frankfort Avenue, at S. Bayly, behind Carmichael’s Bookstore
Eco-Cell, 1726 Mellwood Avenue – deposit in the bamboo box near the door – see photo below
Nancy’s Bagel Grounds, 2101 Frankfort Avenue, at the corner of Frankfort Avenue and Vernon Avenue
Heine Brothers’ Coffee, 2714 Frankfort Avenue, between Hite Avenue and Bayly Avenue
Red Hot Roasters, 1403 Lexington Avenue – drop off your electronics as you drive-thru and buy your coffee

Find these locations on a map of 9th District Green Resources.

Other drop off locations in the 9th District will be announced. If your business would like to serve as a drop off location, please email Katie Holmes.

Acceptable items include: cell phones, cell phone accessories, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players, handheld game systems, GPS handheld units, laptops, e-readers and portable hard drives. All cords and related items can also be recycled. Learn more.

There are many reasons to recycle electronics. Benefits include keeping valuable materials out of landfills, reducing the need for mining of rare metals used to make cell phones and therefore preserving gorilla habitat, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more from Eco-Cell.

Valet Bike Parking at Cherokee Triangle Art Fair

Posted on April 26, 2012 by KHolmes

If you are headed to the CherokeeTriangle Art Fair this weekend, April 28-29, you can ride your bike and use the free bike valet parking. This service is provided by Bicycling for Louisville in conjunction with the neighborhood association. When you drop off your bike you’ll receive a numbered wrist band that you can use to claim your bike. Parking will be near the John Breckinridge Castleman Statue on Cherokee Parkway. Read more about the service.

In addition to free bike parking, the art fair will feature:

A children’s parade, which lines up on Cherokee Road at Longest Avenue, and begins at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Two hours of music and food after the fair closes on Saturday, until 8 p.m.
A children’s activity area
A large plant booth
Cafe Castleman, a roped-off area next to the Castleman Statue where attendees can buy and drink wine and bottled water and eat desserts.